1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a data transmission apparatus capable of holding, e.g., a destination of transmission and transmitting image information or the like to the destination, a control method therefor, and an image input/output apparatus. Particularly, the present invention relates to a data transmission apparatus which controls display of a destination corresponding to a function available to the user and thereby manages the function available to the user, a control method therefor, and an image input/output apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
As the network speed increases, documents and image data are provided more and more via a network. Some digital multifunction devices each having a scanner and printer can print an original on a sheet medium, like a copying machine, and can also transmit, via a network, document data read by a scanner or document data received from a personal computer. Transmission media (transmission protocols) provided by the digital multifunction device include various media such as email, facsimile (FAX), a file transfer protocol (FTP), and a server message block (SMB). Transmission by these methods requires designating a destination of transmission in a format corresponding to each medium. In order to manage a plurality of destinations (destinations of transmission), the digital multifunction device has a transmission address book (destination list). The transmission address book generally saves transmission destination information such as an address in correspondence with the name of the transmission destination. The transmission address book is a list in which addresses each having items such as the name of a destination, the transmission protocol type, and detailed attribute data are registered for one or a plurality of destinations of transmission. The user can select an address from the displayed address book to easily designate the destination. Each address has an attribute (item) “access code”. The user can use only an address having an access code which matches an access code input by the user.
A plurality of users share an advanced digital multifunction device. The advanced digital multifunction device can discriminate a user by his password or the like and can set, for example, the upper print count for each user, providing fine user management. User management is based on user management information registered by the administrator or the like.
A plurality of application programs (also simply called an application) are installed in the digital multifunction device. In order to facilitate management and centralize information, a plurality of applications running on the digital multifunction device commonly use the address book and user management information. Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2003-333241 discloses a multifunction device which allows a plurality of applications running on the multifunction device to share user information and can centralize and manage the user information.
There are demands to manage a transmission medium provided by a digital multifunction device in more detail for each user. More specifically, it is desired to restrict a transmission medium available to each user. For example, when using a digital multifunction device installed at a university, the administrator wants an operation to restrict ordinary students in facsimile transmission requiring high communication cost and permit facsimile transmission to only limited students. In this case, a conventional digital multifunction device provides only an operation to assign an access code to a facsimile number, register them, and notify a user permitted to perform facsimile transmission of the registered access code. In other words, the administrator must manage permission/inhibition of facsimile transmission by creating a user list or the like.
In this manner, the digital multifunction device does not have a function to restrict a user-specific transmission medium. Some multifunction devices can register, in the address book, a grouped destination for transmitting data of the same contents to a plurality of destinations. The grouped destination can contain the destinations of different media. For example, for a given name, a facsimile number and email address serving as destinations can be registered as one grouped destination. When a grouped destination contains a destination of a medium type to which the user is inhibited from transmitting data, a message to this effect must be displayed to the user in an easy-to-understand form; otherwise, the user believes that he successfully transmitted data, though transmission fails.